Towards a computational theory of social groups: A finite set of cognitive primitives for representing any and all social groups in the context of conflict

Pietraszewski, D. (2021). 

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-62. 

doi:10.1017/S0140525X21000583

Abstract

We don't yet have adequate theories of what the human mind is representing when it represents a social group. Worse still, many people think we do. This mistaken belief is a consequence of the state of play: Until now, researchers have relied on their own intuitions to link up the concept social group on the one hand, and the results of particular studies or models on the other. While necessary, this reliance on intuition has been purchased at considerable cost. When looked at soberly, existing theories of social groups are either (i) literal, but not remotely adequate (such as models built atop economic games), or (ii) simply metaphorical (typically a subsumption or containment metaphor). Intuition is filling in the gaps of an explicit theory. This paper presents a computational theory of what, literally, a group representation is in the context of conflict: it is the assignment of agents to specific roles within a small number of triadic interaction types. This “mental definition” of a group paves the way for a computational theory of social groups—in that it provides a theory of what exactly the information-processing problem of representing and reasoning about a group is. For psychologists, this paper offers a different way to conceptualize and study groups, and suggests that a non-tautological definition of a social group is possible. For cognitive scientists, this paper provides a computational benchmark against which natural and artificial intelligences can be held.

Summary and Conclusion

Despite an enormous literature on groups and group dynamics, little attention has been paid to explicit computational theories of how the mind represents and reasons about groups. The goal of this paper has been, in a conceptual, non-technical manner, to propose a simple but non-trivial framework for starting to ask questions about the nature of the underlying representations that make the phenomenon of social groups possible—all described at the level of information processing. This computational theory, when combined with many more such theories—and followed by extensive task analyses and empirical investigations—will eventually contribute to a full accounting of the information-processing required to represent, reason about, and act in accordance with group representations.

A pdf is here.

Action and inaction in moral judgments and decisions: ‎Meta-analysis of Omission-Bias omission-commission asymmetries

Jamison, J., Yay, T., & Feldman, G.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 89, July 2020, 103977

Abstract

Omission bias is the preference for harm caused through omissions over harm caused through commissions. In a pre-registered experiment (N = 313), we successfully replicated an experiment from Spranca, Minsk, and Baron (1991), considered a classic demonstration of the omission bias, examining generalizability to a between-subject design with extensions examining causality, intent, and regret. Participants in the harm through commission condition(s) rated harm as more immoral and attributed higher responsibility compared to participants in the harm through omission condition (d = 0.45 to 0.47 and d = 0.40 to 0.53). An omission-commission asymmetry was also found for perceptions of causality and intent, in that commissions were attributed stronger action-outcome links and higher intentionality (d = 0.21 to 0.58). The effect for regret was opposite from the classic findings on the action-effect, with higher regret for inaction over action (d = −0.26 to −0.19). Overall, higher perceived causality and intent were associated with higher attributed immorality and responsibility, and with lower perceived regret.

From the Discussion

Regret: Deviation from the action-effect 

The classic action-effect (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) findings were that actions leading to a negative outcome are regretted more than inactions leading to the same negative outcomes. We added a regret measure to examine whether the action-effect findings would extend to situations of morality involving intended harmful behavior. Our findings were opposite to the expected action-effect omission-commission asymmetry with participants rating omissions as more regretted than commissions (d = 0.18 to 0.26).  

One explanation for this surprising finding may be an intermingling of the perception of an actors’ regret for their behavior with their regret for the outcome. In typical action-effect scenarios, actors behave in a way that is morally neutral but are faced with an outcome that deviates from expectations, such as losing money over an investment. In this study’s omission bias scenarios, the actors behaved immorally to harm others for personal or interpersonal gain, and then are faced with an outcome that deviates from expectation. We hypothesized that participants would perceive actors as being more regretful for taking action that would immorally harm another person rather than allowing that harm through inaction. Yet it is plausible that participants were focused on the regret that actors would feel for not taking more direct action towards their goal of personal or interpersonal gain.  

Another possible explanation for the regret finding is the side-taking hypothesis (DeScioli, 2016; Descoli & Kurzban, 2013). This states that group members side against a wrongdoer who has performed an action that is perceived morally wrong by also attributing lack of remorse or regret. The negative relationship observed between the positive characteristic of regret and the negative characteristics of immorality, causality, and intentionality is in support of this explanation. Future research may be able to explore the true mechanisms of regret in such scenarios. 

A pdf is here.

Science Skepticism Across 24 Countries

Rutjens, B. T., et al., (2021). 

Social Psychological and Personality Science. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211001329

Abstract

Efforts to understand and remedy the rejection of science are impeded by lack of insight into how it varies in degree and in kind around the world. The current work investigates science skepticism in 24 countries (N = 5,973). Results show that while some countries stand out as generally high or low in skepticism, predictors of science skepticism are relatively similar across countries. One notable effect was consistent across countries though stronger in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) nations: General faith in science was predicted by spirituality, suggesting that it, more than religiosity, may be the ‘enemy’ of science acceptance. Climate change skepticism was mainly associated with political conservatism especially in North America. Other findings were observed across WEIRD and non-WEIRD nations: Vaccine skepticism was associated with spirituality and scientific literacy, genetic modification skepticism with scientific literacy, and evolution skepticism with religious orthodoxy. Levels of science skepticism are heterogeneous across countries, but predictors of science skepticism are heterogeneous across domains.

From the Discussion

Indeed, confirming previous results obtained in the Netherlands (Rutjens & van der Lee, 2020)—and providing strong support for Hypothesis 6—the current data speak to the crucial role of spirituality in fostering low faith in science, more generally, beyond its domain-specific effects on vaccine skepticism. This indicates that the negative impact of spirituality on faith in science represents a cross-national phenomenon that is more generalizable than might be expected based on the large variety (Muthukrishna et al., 2020) of countries included here. A possible explanation for the robustness of this effect may lie in the inherent irreconcilability of the intuitive epistemology of a spiritual belief system with science (Rutjens & van der Lee, 2020). (If so, then we might look at a potentially much larger problem that extends beyond spirituality and applies more generally to “post-truth” society, in which truth and perceptions of reality may be based on feelings rather than facts; Martel et al., 2020; Rutjens & Brandt, 2018.) However, these results do not mean that traditional religiosity as a predictor of science skepticism (McPhetres & Zuckermann, 2018; Rutjens, Heine, et al., 2018; Rutjens, Sutton, & van der Lee, 2018) has now become irrelevant: Not only did religious orthodoxy significantly contribute to low faith in science, it was also found to be a very consistent cross-national predictor of evolution skepticism (but not of other forms of science skepticism included in the study).

The research is here.

Shared Reality: From Sharing-Is-Believing to Merging Minds

Higgins, E. T., Rossignac-Milon, M., & 

Echterhoff, G. (2021). 

Current Directions in Psychological 

Science, 30(2), 103–110. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721421992027 

Abstract

Humans are fundamentally motivated to create a sense of shared reality—the perceived commonality of inner states (feeling, beliefs, and concerns about the world) with other people. This shared reality establishes a sense of both social connection and understanding the world. Research on shared reality has burgeoned in recent decades. We first review evidence for a basic building block of shared-reality creation: sharing-is-believing, whereby communicators tune their descriptions to align with their communication partner’s attitude about something, which in turn shapes their recall. Next, we describe recent developments moving beyond this basic building block to explore generalized shared reality about the world at large, which promotes interpersonal closeness and epistemic certainty. Together, this body of work exemplifies the synergy between relational and epistemic motives. Finally, we discuss the potential for another form of shared reality—shared relevance—to bridge disparate realities.

From Concluding Remarks

The field of shared reality has made significant progress in advancing understanding of how humans share inner states as a way to connect with each other and make sense of the world. These advancements shed new light on current issues. For instance, exaggerated perceptions of consensus generated by filter bubbles and echo chambers may inflate the experience of shared reality on social media, especially given the intensifying effects of collective attention (Shteynberg et al., 2020) and transmission through social networks (Kashima et al., 2018). By shaping attitudes and ideological beliefs (see Jost et al., 2018; Stern & Ondish, 2018), shared reality can perpetuate insular views and exacerbate ideological divisions. But there is a different kind of shared reality that could be beneficial in this context: shared perceptions of what is worthy of attention. Wanting to establish shared relevance is so central to human motivation that even infants seek to establish it with their caregivers by pointing out objects deserving of co-attention (Higgins, 2016).

A pdf is here.

Absolutely Right and Relatively Good: Consequentialists See Bioethical Disagreement in a Relativist Light

H. Viciana, I. R. Hannikainen & D. Rodríguez-Arias 

(2021) AJOB Empirical Bioethics

DOI: 10.1080/23294515.2021.1907476

Abstract

Background

Contemporary societies are rife with moral disagreement, resulting in recalcitrant disputes on matters of public policy. In the context of ongoing bioethical controversies, are uncompromising attitudes rooted in beliefs about the nature of moral truth?

Methods

To answer this question, we conducted both exploratory and confirmatory studies, with both a convenience and a nationally representative sample (total N = 1501), investigating the link between people’s beliefs about moral truth (their metaethics) and their beliefs about moral value (their normative ethics).

Results

Across various bioethical issues (e.g., medically-assisted death, vaccine hesitancy, surrogacy, mandatory organ conscription, or genetically modified crops), consequentialist attitudes were associated with weaker beliefs in an objective moral truth. This association was not explained by domain-general reflectivity, theism, personality, normative uncertainty, or subjective knowledge.

Conclusions

We find a robust link between the way people characterize prescriptive disagreements and their sensibility to consequences. In addition, both societal consensus and personal conviction contribute to objectivist beliefs, but these effects appear to be asymmetric, i.e., stronger for opposition than for approval.

From the Discussion

The evidence is now strong that individuals tend to embrace rather diverse metaethical attitudes regarding moral disagreement, depending on the issues at stake (eg. Cova & Ravat 2008; Pölzler & Cole-Wright 2020). Thus, we believe that the time is ripe for empirical bioethics to update this assumption.

A pdf of the research is here.

Vignette 38: Psychotherapy Without Medication

Beau Propion sought therapy from Dr. Pfizer.  At the initial session, Dr. Pfizer evaluated the patient as suffering with a moderate form of depression.  Mr. Propion indicated he did not want to take antidepressant medication, because he had read all the horrible adverse effects of antidepressant medication on the internet.  Given the moderate signs and symptoms, Dr. Pfizer understood the patient’s decision and agreed to engage in a psychotherapy relationship with the patient.  The main treatment goal was to decrease signs and symptoms of depression.

As treatment progressed, Mr. Propion became more significantly depressed.  He presented with more significant symptoms of depression.  Signs and symptoms included sleeping too much, weight gain, fatigue, passive suicidal ideation, procrastination, and poor concentration.  He recently started taking days off from work because of the severity of the depressive symptoms.

During a session, Dr. Pfizer broached the subject of antidepressants, because Dr. Pfizer knows that medication can be helpful, especially in more significant forms of depression.  As expected, Mr. Propion declines a referral for medication evaluation.  Dr. Pfizer is concerned about the patient and calls you for a consultation.

What are the ethical issues involved in this case?

What are the clinical issues involved in this situation?

What are the ramifications about the therapeutic relationship?

What course of action would you suggest to Dr. Pfizer?

Scientific panel loosens ’14-day rule’ limiting how long human embryos can be grown in the lab

Andrew Joseph

STATnews.com

Originally posted 26 May 2021

An influential scientific panel cracked open the door on Wednesday to growing human embryos in the lab for longer periods of time than currently allowed, a step that could enable the plumbing of developmental mysteries but that also raises thorny questions about whether research that can be pursued should be.

For decades, scientists around the world have followed the “14-day rule,” which stipulates that they should let human embryos develop in the lab for only up to two weeks after fertilization. The rule — which some countries (though not the United States) have codified into law — was meant to allow researchers to conduct inquiries into the early days of embryonic development, but not without limits. And for years, researchers didn’t push that boundary, not just for legal and ethical reasons, but for technical ones as well: They couldn’t keep the embryos growing in lab dishes that long.

More recently, however, scientists have refined their cell-culture techniques, finding ways to sustain embryos up to that deadline. Those advances — along with other leaps in the world of stem cell research, with scientists now transmogrifying cells into blobs that resemble early embryos or injecting human cells into animals — have complicated ethical debates about how far biomedical research should go in its quest for knowledge and potential treatments.

Now, in the latest updates to its guidelines, the International Society for Stem Cell Research has revised its view on studies that would take human embryos beyond 14 days, moving such experiments from the “absolutely not” category to a “maybe” — but only if lots of conditions are first met.

“We’ve relaxed the guidelines in that respect, we haven’t abandoned them,” developmental biologist Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute, who chaired the ISSCR’s guidelines task force, said at a press briefing.

The info is here.

The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion?

Oliver Burkeman

The Guardian

Originally posted 27 APR 21

Here is an excerpt:

And Saul Smilansky, a professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa in Israel, who believes the popular notion of free will is a mistake, told me that if a graduate student who was prone to depression sought to study the subject with him, he would try to dissuade them. “Look, I’m naturally a buoyant person,” he said. “I have the mentality of a village idiot: it’s easy to make me happy. Nevertheless, the free will problem is really depressing if you take it seriously. It hasn’t made me happy, and in retrospect, if I were at graduate school again, maybe a different topic would have been preferable.”

Smilansky is an advocate of what he calls “illusionism”, the idea that although free will as conventionally defined is unreal, it’s crucial people go on believing otherwise – from which it follows that an article like this one might be actively dangerous. (Twenty years ago, he said, he might have refused to speak to me, but these days free will scepticism was so widely discussed that “the horse has left the barn”.) “On the deepest level, if people really understood what’s going on – and I don’t think I’ve fully internalised the implications myself, even after all these years – it’s just too frightening and difficult,” Smilansky said. “For anyone who’s morally and emotionally deep, it’s really depressing and destructive. It would really threaten our sense of self, our sense of personal value. The truth is just too awful here.”

(cut)

By far the most unsettling implication of the case against free will, for most who encounter it, is what is seems to say about morality: that nobody, ever, truly deserves reward or punishment for what they do, because what they do is the result of blind deterministic forces (plus maybe a little quantum randomness).  "For the free will sceptic," writes Gregg Caruso in his new book Just Deserts, a collection of dialogues with fellow philosopher Daniel Dennett, "it is never fair to treat anyone as morally responsible." Were we to accept the full implications of that idea, the way we treat each other - and especially the way we treat criminals - might change beyond recognition.

The info is here.

We Must Rethink the Role of Medical Expert Witnesses

Amitha Kalaichandran

Scientific American

Originally posted 5 May 21

Here are two excerpts:

The second issue is that the standard used by the courts to assess whether an expert witness’s scientific testimony can be included differs by state. Several states (including Minnesota) use the Frye Rule, established in 1923, which asks whether the expert’s assessment is generally accepted by the scientific community that specializes in this narrow field of expertise. Federally, and in several other states, the Daubert Standard of 1993 is used, which dictates the expert show their scientific reasoning (so the determination of validity is left to the courts), though acceptance within the scientific community is still a factor. Each standard has its drawbacks. For instance, in Frye, the expert’s community could be narrowly drawn by the legal team in a way that helps bolster the expert’s outdated or rare perspective, and the Daubert standard presumes that the judge and jury have an understanding of the science in order to independently assess scientific validity. Some states also strictly apply the standard, whereas others are more flexible. (The Canadian approach is derived from the case R v. Mohan, which states the expert be qualified and their testimony be relevant, but the test for “reliability” is left to the courts).

Third, when it comes to assessments of cause of death specifically, understanding the distinction between necessary and sufficient is important. Juries can have a hard time teasing out the difference. In the Chauvin trial, the medical expert witnesses testifying on behalf of the prosecution were aligned in their assessment of what killed Floyd: the sustained pressure of the officer’s knee on Floyd’s neck (note that asphyxia is a common cause of cardiac arrest). However, David Fowler, the medical expert witness for the defense, suggested the asphyxia was secondary to heart disease and drug intoxication as meaningful contributors to his death.

(cut)

Another improvement could involve ensuring that courts institute a more stringent application and selection process, in which medical expert witnesses would be required to demonstrate their clinical and research competence related to the specific issues in a case, and where their abilities are recognized by their professional group. For example, the American College of Cardiology could endorse a cardiologist as a leader in a relevant subspecialty—a similar approach has been suggested as a way to reform medical expert witness testimony by emergency physicians. One drawback, according to Faigman, is that courts would be unlikely to fully abdicate their role in evaluating expertise.

The info is here.